Climate scientists: More scared of an inquiry into the science than they are of climate change

What’s more terrifying to a climate scientist than “2 degrees” of warming? Answer: Half a degree of hard questions.

Australian climate scientists don’t complain at all when the UN says it wants to redirect $89 Trillion in a quest to change the climate. But they are suddenly all concerned that the Australian Government might waste 0.0001% investigating the science. A disaster! Since when were climate scientists concerned about wasting public money? Since never.

A group of thirteen scientists, who’ve personally achieved little in the way of scientific advances, have written to Dennis Jensen and Chris Back offering to brief them on the “latest science”, afraid the skeptics might launch an inquiry into the science. The ABC calls them “prominent”: Climate change: Scientists warn sceptic MPs Dennis Jensen, Chris Back against inquiry into evidence of human influence.

Isn’t the scientific evidence the most important thing?

Surveys show half of the Australian public are skeptical — unconvinced by their claims that coal will cause a climate crisis or that solar panels can stop the storms. Right now, if the climate is headed for a disaster, nothing is more important than convincing the public. Instead, the climate scientists keep repeating that the debate is over, “trust us”, and “don’t ask questions”. But the debate never happened, the public don’t trust them, and we have many many questions — and they are not going away.

In a Reuters poll, 57% of people said they don’t think UN Climate Scientists can speak with authority on climate. Some scientists keep repeating that there is a consensus, but that spin isn’t working. More of the same isn’t going to change that. It’s time for a real debate.

If the evidence was overwhelming, 95% certain, the climate scientists would welcome the attention. But it’s a gambit they played ten years ago, and the game is over. Skeptics know the case for a crisis will fall over with the merest honest inspection. The unskeptical scientists know it too — that’s why they are so afraid the Coalition might really call their bluff and demand real answers.

How weak is their scientific position?

Dennis Jensen pointed out 97% of models did not predict “the Pause”. So Professor Hoegh-Guldberg simply denied there is a pause. (Hello? What about those satellites? Ignoring most of the big climate temperature data sets?) Probably the only paper in Professor Hoegh-Guldberg’s arsenal is the recent Karl et al one, which ignored the best ocean gauges and used a wildly uncertain estimate to blend two bad data sets together. What’s the certainty? The data was corrected with a figure where the error was 17 times larger than the correction: 0.12 ± 1.7°C. See, exotic adventures in global climate data to unfind “the Pause”. They must be kidding.

Hoegh-Guldberg says 18 years of a global temperature pause is “short term”:

But Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said that was a short-term perspective.

“When you look at the literature, there’s been no hiatus,” he said.

“There’s random variability around the upward signal of temperature.

“It’s just like the stock market. If you look at that it’s going up and down but it’ll have a trend — that trend is what we’re watching.

“[It's] not whether it’s going up or down over a period of 10 years — it’s a long-term signal.”

18 years. 10 years, what’s the difference? It’s only math. ;- )

And oh, yes, please, Hoegh-Guldberg, let’s look at the long term. How many of the IPCC favourite climate models “predicted” the medieval warm period? How many can model the holocene optimum? None and zero. None of their models understand the climate.

M.P.s who understand science are harder to fool

Senator Chris Back is trained in veterinary science. Dennis Jensen has a PhD in physics. Both are happy to listen to the “experts”, but neither will be convinced by weak claims of “consensus”.

Mr Jensen said he was willing to meet the scientists to hear their views.

“I’m open to being convinced but the data and the evidence that I’ve seen [on climate change] thus far certainly I don’t find compelling,” he said.

He claimed that pointing to a scientific consensus on climate science “indicates your argument is weak”.

“When is the last time you heard the consensus of the world scientists is that the earth is roughly spherical?” he said.

“You get the appeal to consensus when the data and the evidence is weak and it’s an appeal to authority rather than examining the data and the evidence.”

Senator Back said he was happy to meet the scientists.

As “a person with a scientific background”, Senator Back said he was concerned by claims that “the science is in and no-one should challenge it”. He is trained as a veterinarian and does not have expertise in climate science.

In response to their concerns, the best the experts can offer is “trust us”

“Exhaustive” and “experts” are just words, not evidence:

Professor Peter Newman, a signatory to the letter and a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the panel’s research was an “exhaustive” process.

He said the political debate around climate change action was legitimate but ”frustrating”.

Professor Newman said MPs should “just deal with the politics, that’s their job”, adding “the scientists have done their job”.

Professor Hughes said MPs who cast doubt on the science of global warming were trying to delay political progress on the issue.

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203 comments to Climate scientists: More scared of an inquiry into the science than they are of climate change

Messrs Jensen and Back should take the 13 up on their offer and ask them to then sit in on a briefing with a group of sceptical scientists and debate the issue when both groups have provided their input.

If the 13 are not prepared to do that, then the Jensen and Back should tip the bucket on them for bias and unscientific behaviour.

Perhaps Christopher Monckton could be called to give evidence – I am sure he would leap at the oportunity to debate Steffen, Hoegh-Guldberg, Newman and the rest. I think though that they would run scared.

Much as Christopher Monckton is good, there are plenty of Australian Scientists who would be happy to give said inquiry a decent balance with solid scientific evidence to back them up including Bob Carter, David Evans, Jennifer Marohasy even Jo would be chomping at the bit!!

Jo

Why not offer your services and see who else would tag along?
I am sure the good Senators are open to hearing both sides of the debate!

There is a story, that Mao decided that there were far to many flys in China. So a proclamation went out, that every person in China had to catch, and present, a certain number of flies, each day, to the local Party representative.

The result was that the peasantry spent time, running around each day to catch the required number of flys. The Europeans, who were working in China, just bought a fish tank, and started breeding them.

This is relevant, because the people who just accept the climate change dogma, and accept the resultant increases in power bills and taxes, are just chasing flys. They never seem to stop, and ask if there is a better way, or even if it is necessary at all.

I watched a BBC doco the other night done by Louis Thoreaux. He was at Area 51 in Nevada.
There is a large number of people that BELIEVE that region is thick with alien visitors.
I reckon there are two kinds of folk involved.
One type is the opportunist that recognises a chance to make a quick buck selling artifacts, souvenirs, and tours.
The other type is the gullible and ignorant that lap this belief up without a whisper of empirical evidence.
It occurred to me that exactly the same situation exists with the AGW religion.
There are the Gores, the Flannerys, and the Steffens that are in it for fame and fortune.
And then there are the Harry Twinotters that slurp up that Kool-aid like there is no tomorrow.

The scientist have done their job: “get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have”. They have not: “as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts” (Stephen Schneider)

Hans
These activists (climate scientists) are lying about being scientists in order to get the credibility real science has earned. They have also been lying about being Nobel Laureates for the same reason.

These Scientists and Organisations just KNOW, for sure and for certain that CO2 is the single major cause of all these problems.

Yet you NEVER hear any of them advocating that the largest source of all those CO2 emissions be shut down immediately. I mean, after all, they tell us that in reality, this is what amounts to the survival of Earth they are on about, in other words a monumentally huge problem.

And yet, if so, then the answer is simple.

Just turn them off right now, to save the Planet, and we’ll deal with any problems that arise from that, because first things first. STOP the cancer. Cut it out. Then, deal with what happens next.

It’s always puzzled me as to why no one (not one of them, anywhere) among any and all of these Scientists and Organisations are even mentioning this, even obliquely.

Why is that?

The only thing I can think of is if they do mention it, people will actually SEE what happens next, and will (quite literally) revolt.

If they even mention it, be it as as a single Scientist, a group of them, an Organisation, from the small ones right up to the huge ones, the UNFCCC, the UNIPCC etc, then they will be effectively soiling their own nest, as people will look upon them as drastic scaremongers calling for an even more scary resolution of the problem, and their original message will be lost in the backlash. They will lose support from the people they are trying to get to in the first place. More importantly, they will lose the support of Governments who give them every dollar of funding. They will lose the backing of whoever is at the head of their entity, the Universities where all this comes from, and they know not to bite the hand which feeds them, all the way up the chain to the Governments, who also know that to even suggest in the slightest that those power plants be turned off would be absolute political suicide for all of them.

So, the subject of closing the plants is assiduously avoided.

I dream of the Paris Conference actually calling for the immediate closing of all CO2 emitting power plants.

That will NEVER happen. Not while there’s so much money to be made from them.

What we need is for the people running any Inquiry like this is to lay it on the line. Tell the public that this CO2 scare means the closing of those plants, and then tell them what happens next.

No waffling, or skirting the edges. Just tell the people flat out that this means the taking away of the electrical power from every aspect of their lives.

Then see how quickly this whole thing goes away.

These people actually KNOW this, and yet, they will not tell the rest of the public.

Totally agree Tony and yes, if they are the great evil and are dragging the earth to an inevitable fire and brimstone death, why have they not already closed down every cancerous coal power plant on the planet!

As to the “Settled Science”, it seems to me that the original “science” was the development of models showing a correlation between CO2 and rising temperatures to support the greenhouse theory. Lately the “science” has degenerated into a series of ever more panicked attempts to cover up the cracks exposed by the climates rather inconsiderate failure to conform to the models.

The global warming scam is really another form of perpetual motion ideation.
Wh
They are told that wind is “free” … well so is coal in the ground and like wind the only cost is the machinery to capture the “free” energy. But for some daft reason the gullibles believe wind is free and don’t believe coal is free.

The next step is to ignore the energy cost in manufacturing the machinery, building the roads, sending all those gullibles to the paris “Dead parrot talks”. For obvious reasons we aren’t ever told the actual energy costs involved in putting up gullibles, but as the cost is a good proxy for the energy used in manufacture, installation etc., its a good rule of thumb that if an energy “source” needs subsidy then more energy goes into it than ever comes out.

In short – we’d be as well to buy batteries from China rather than birdmincers-gullibles because at least we could recharge the batteries.

Tony – their greatest fear of closing the power plants is not just of them being found out as promoting unpleasant, dangerous, misanthropic ideas, but, what if all the power plants are closed, all productivity stops, all transport grinds to a halt – and levels of CO2 continue to rise?!

The question that needs to be answered – which will negate any such efforts – is hidden in the numbers
The CO2 levels went up 22ppm in the last 10 yrs
But only 0.6ppm of that was from man, the other 21.4 ppm was from natural causes, outgassing from oceans, volcanoes, rotting vegetation, methane release etc etc
You have already noted the hardships to be faced if the manmade sources were shutdown, and also noted they will not be – partly because of the money to be made from them yet, and largely because mankind is not prepared to have to step back the distance shutting them down would require
And why should he, if every manmade source on the globe was shut down it would decrease the CO2 increase by no more than 0.6ppm in 10 yrs
The natural causes will not stop, in fact they will increase, mans puny efforts would not even register, in the next 10 years CO2 levels will increase by another 23 or 24ppm

Tell the public that this CO2 scare means the closing of those plants, and then tell them what happens next.

Tony, would it not be better to tell the punters the truth rather than scare them with some fantasy of living in a powerless world because they want to turn off the power stations? Why not say as you do here, that they will NEVER shut down the coal fired stations because we don’t have a viable alternative (or even as you say that there is still money to be made out of them) but they will come and get some of your money for the EU coffers. Don’t we have some sort of 97% consensus that the AGW scam is about an ongoing and sustainable tap of money from the public rather than any sort of environmental or climatic outcome? Surely the evidence to-date points to that?

Tony, the sad thing is there is still a sizable number of people who actually believe Solar and Wind energy can replace coal overnight. These people believe the only reason the world does not go down that path is due to some global conspiracy between Big Coal and Conservative politicians.

But ultimately what makes people listen is their back pockets. My understanding is current Renewable energy technologies cannot compete with coal unless the retail price paid by individuals and businesses is heavily subsidized. South Australia and Costa Rica are two examples.

South Australia has crowed loudly that renewable energy generated a very high proportion of that states total energy – but that was during a very windy period when consumption was low (night?). Also if Wind Towers and solar hot water tanks were not subsidized I wonder how popular they would be?

Costa Rica got a lot of mention by alarmists when they produced 100% of their energy from renewable energy recently – too bad that is largely because they have lots of dams and recent floods – together with Costa Rica being in a geologically unstable region with lots of geothermal energy – unlike Australia for example. Then of course in Australia our “Greens” will never allow new dams be built for fear of drowning some rare breed of frogs?

But you are right, there is so much Pea and Thimble tricks being played out with facts that the average person could be excused from not being able to separate fact from fiction or a sense of proportion when it comes to the true potential of current renewable energy sources.

As you have pointed out before the largest solar plants on earth still pale compared to the output of a typical coal plant. Maybe if I can work really hard and save enough money I could live through the economic disaster that would entail if our “Greens” got their way coal was suddenly switched off? But really our media has a lot to answer for as they ultimately influence public opinion.

But what I would like to see more of is people like those who regularly comment in Jo’s site post comments in MSM articles whenever they can. The best place to post is in left leaning sites – as that upsets the group-think and you may just help plant a few seeds of doubt in the minds of the ill informed.

I have spent some time amongst the Fairfax kool-aid brigade today commenting on its story on the turbine review. It astounds me that so many there think that a wind turbine on a previously unspoiled headland is a thing of utter beauty that must be worshipped and adored.

Worryingly quite a few of them believed that the Flat Earth Institute submission was a serious contribution to the review, one of them, who I think hasn’t even diluted the cordial before drinking it, even cited it as definitive proof that sceptics have no real position to argue from!

What is most irritating is that when you present them with data and facts, they retaliate with more models and untested theories to “prove” their point. Sadly they greatly outnumber sceptics and do there best to shout down every sceptical posts (often ignoring the facts and verballing the poster to pretend that the alarmist argument is better). Most swallow and regurgitate everything that Fairfax, Skeptical Science and others spoon feed to them.

True Rereke, but it is fun. Although a little frustrating when they close the comments before you can respond to a piece of inanity – particularly when that poster is gloating because they think they have one a point!

A humble reminder that MPs and Senators don’t have to be experts in climate science, or anything else, to do their job. Their qualification is having been elected to represent their constituency. Please don’t fall for the ‘they (insert anyone who disagrees with the CAGW crowd) are not climate scientists, so their opinions don’t matter’ putdown. Politicians have real power, unlike climate “scientists” who just think they do. And by the way, take a look at world markets currently going berserk – economics not science will determine the end of the climate rort, when the “free money” runs out.

I find it curiously hypocritical how these CAGWists always demand climate scientist credentials of anyone who easily debunks their theory, yet this isn’t necessary for them because their Goreacles, as self-professed, simply have to look out the window.

As far as I am aware Professor Peter Newman is not a scientist. He appears often on the ABC in Perth commenting on town planning issues and the like. He is real media tart who is one of the automatic “go to” men for young ABC journalists in this town.

The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries.
— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Ch. II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, pp. 36-37 (1859)

What happened in Canberra is that a falsehood was fed by a trusted source into a political system with no consistent data standards for vetting policy, and from that point onwards democracy functioned about as well as it always has and lead predictably to a crazy and suboptimal conclusion. As long as the great unwashed rely upon the same false source, the crazy result will be accepted as the necessary price of a fair and logical process.
— Me, 2011.

All good posts. But what will we do when (not if) the ALP gets back in government, re-introduces the carbon tax or something similar, and head the way of Greece in terms of debt? Who is to blame? Not the ALP that’s for sure. It’s the voters because they will vote them back in a government knowing full well what is going to happen given our past and the observable evidence of other socialistic nations in the present. We all know where the ALP stands on a number of policies. In other words, don’t blame the socialist politicians, blame the public for voting them in. We just have to learn the hard way, much like Greece is doing now. As for science forget it – it has been hijacked by the socialist left. Oh well it could have been worse (I think). It could have been hijacked by the national socialist right (ie, Nazism). In the end though the result will be the same – utter chaos and destruction before the next cycle begins back to sensible policies. History teaches us that we keep repeating the same mistakes.

Given Shorten’s performance today under some very heavy questioning, I doubt he will last as opposition leader much longer. Yet if by some miracle he does survive (thanks mostly due to the snow job by the media) and he does win the next election, it will be a dead give away that we are heading the way of Greece to teach us a very valuable lesson most of us haven’t learned yet – that socialism (of any kind) is a a total failure.

Regarding the argument advanced in the linked article, there’s an old joke that comes to mind.

It’s late, well after dark and a man walking down the street encounters a second man frantically searching the area under a streetlight. After watching this for a short time he asks what’s going on. The second man replies, “I’m searching for my wallet but I can’t find it.” The next question follows easily and the first man asks, “Where did you lose it?” The second man replies, “Back there in the ally.” The first man is surprised to say the least but he retains his composure and asks, “Then why are you searching here?” The reply is, “There’s light here so I can see but none back there in the ally.”

Not exactly the same thing but it’s illustrative of the thinking involved. There’s light if I compare a maximum temperature at one place with a maximum temperature at another because then I can find what I’m looking for. Problem solve and we can all go home.

Politicians today asked for some outside experts to check the figures on which the astronomers at the Siding Springs telescope and also from the Parkes Radio Telescope have modeled and from those modeled predictions have calculated that a 20 kilometre wide asteroid will collide with Earth sometime between 2016 and 3115.

The Astronomers have refused to release their modeled calculations and have warned politicians from enquiring into the accuracy of the their calculations and the validity of the modeled trajectory of the asteroid which still has to be located.

The Astronomers are claiming that based on their astronomical modeling they are 95% certain that the giant asteroid will appear on schedule on a collision trajectory with Earth.

Proffessor Light’n'fast said that it is essential that Australia invest in a dozen or more multi unit, multi cored super computer arrays each of which should be similar in power to the $100 million “Titan” computer of the American Oak Ridge National Laboratories so as to further calculate the trajectory and impact points of this very dangerous asteroid which will wipe out 97% of all life over the planet when it impacts.

Proffessor Suckitup, Reader in Gerontology at the Burketown Institute of Mourning Glory further noted that it was not the role of politicians or the public to question the expertise of the astronomical scientists and that the government should immediately provide additional funding to further this research into the modeling of this predicted catastrophic event.

[ do I need a sarc? ]
——————–
But just imagine the reaction of politicians, the media and the public to such a scenario as above if the scientific astronomy fraternity tried to quite deliberately withhold information on it’s calculations on the model predicted probability of a major asteroid impact from the politicians, the media and the public.

Yet we are constantly bombarded with endless repetitive claims of predictions of a climate change catastrophe just around the corner.
But we, the public, the politicians who have to formulate policy to cater for such predicted catastrophes if it exists and some of the more enlightened and skeptical media are denied access at any level to the calculations and modelling of the climate scientists who are involved in making these claims of an impending climate change catastrophe.

But then of course we ARE dealing with climate science and those misnamed “pseudo-scientific” practitioners of that amorphous, slippery, vaporous, chameleon, shifting shape and increasingly slimy “climate change” science.

This Global Warming thing is claimed, by some, to be planet threatening. It will change our way of life for ever.

I would have thought that the scientists with access to the data and research would want to share that information with the rest of the population in every possible way because if the planet is lost it will be lost for everyone.

The Phil Jones comment about why should I let you see my data when all you want to do is find something wrong with it convinced me that all was not as claimed.

Bringing the subject into the daylight of public debate can only be good. Surely, with the science being incontrovertible, we will all be convinced when things are explained properly. Would you not try to at least explain the problem when the continuation of life itself depends on people understanding it?

Well, I’m convinced. I heard that sound bite of Jose Goldberg’s Monday morning on the ABC.
It’s absolutely astounding, when you think about it.
Temperature is “just like the stock market”. Up one day and down the next.
I was so inspired by this bright spark that I wrote a letter to all of the Tasmanian senators.
Why did it take so long for this science to be revealed?
In order to solve the Gorebull Worming issue, we only need to manipulate the stock market!

An official, penetrating inquiry into climate science and associated activist-scientists’ excursions into rhetoric and manipulation of opinion would be a wonderful thing. Australia has been cursed by more than its fair share of intemperate, agitated, irresponsible, and childlike climate zealots that it would make a good location for such an inquiry.

John I recall making this suggestion to PM Abbott a long time ago, essentially to get it off the political agenda and into the hands of a qualified panel including some from overseas under the chairmanship of someone like Bob Carter: it didn’t happen but the panel could have looked into various aspects of the debate such as the settled science, the lack of correlation between global temperatures and levels of CO2, the failed predictive models, that the abatement of carbon will not change CO2 levels because most of it in the atmosphere is natural and controlled by its solubility in water (the oceans). Gentlemen such as Drs. Flannery, Karoly and Steffen could have provided submissions to the inquiry to be assessed by the panel. Science is such that either it is right or wrong and there are no grey areas unlike politics. It would have been enlightening to see the results instead of reports by Stern and Garnaut.

I could be very wrong here, but it seems that what you describe is exactly what the NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change) has done in its episodic reports.

I believe that they offer their lengthy analysis free on-line (some 2 – 3 Gb); what is even more interesting is that their basic analysis, done some 8-to-10 years ago is still valid. The updates have only served to reinforce the initial conclusions.

The vast majority of the participants have served on a volunteer basis, I believe.

I think you are only somewhat wrong! The excellent NIPCC reports concentrate on providing evidence against climate alarm over our CO2 emissions, and highlighting other factors, as well as other impacts, often beneficial, involved in climate change over the past several decades. They are not, however, ‘official’, nor do they constitute a thorough inquiry into these astonishing decades for climate science and climate scientists. They would be highly useful resources, however, for any body conducting such an inquiry. They are available here: http://www.nipccreport.org/

Professor Peter Newman has a 1972 PhD in Chemistry, so he would be nearing 70.

After that he became a politician, a councillor in the City of Fremantle. After that a train advisor and ultimately advisor to the IPCC on transport, not climate. So is he a scientist, a politician or a train expert?

My question for all such scientists is one of the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere. If it is short, as can be shown, why would they expect CO2 to hang around in the air? Why do they even expect that the increase in CO2 is man made? There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature, especially for the last 18 years. So why does Peter Newman demand everyone do what they are told? Why does he not concede that the hypotheses are disproven?

Then you get the ‘sustainability’ politician. He joins Will Steffen as a PhD chemist who knows better and says nothing and insists that 20 years evidence of a total lack of warming is ignored. That is simply the argument from authority without a shred of proof.

My point is that after a full lifetime of pushing trains against cars, you have a dedicated professional who has held many of the senior ‘sustainability’ roles in the country. These are the credentials of a life long dedicated Green professional salaried politician, not an objective independent scientist. How much credibility can you give someone who has been anti car for fifty years?

There is a reasonably strong correlation between temperature and change in CO2 in the atmosphere:http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/CO2vTemp.pdf
If temperature falls 1.1 degrees K below present level it is likely that CO2 in the atmosphere will fall. A correlation coefficient of 0.53 in not bad for correlation of two factors in the atmosphere.

Rick, Murry found there was no significant correlation between CO2 and temperature. (Refer to his original German lecture). So rising CO2 does not increase the temperature.

However as you say, he found a strong correlation between CO2 and the integral of temperature. The significance of this is that while CO2 does not produce a temperature rise, a series of warm events does produce a CO2 rise. The integral is the sum of all the warm pulses, so the total heating, presumably of the ocean which covers 2/3 of the planet. So heating the ocean releases CO2. It all seems very obvious and given the vast amounts of CO2 in the ocean, predictable, calculable and logical.

Actually the term denier could more easily be attributed to those people who are in total denial that global temperature increases have stopped for 20 years. Who says it is a hiatus?

Those people who never believed in man made global warming enjoy the name sceptic and as the world refuses to heat, it is obvious who is the denier.

Does Tim Flannery still deny that the rains which fall have filled the dams? Or is the current state of full dams a statistical aberration in the middle of a longer drought?

At what point will the thousands of professional salaried contracted consulting warmists and self described ‘climate scientists’ concede they are wrong and so have always been wrong? It is amazing how few if any of these consultants and experts are or ever have been meteorologists.

At what point will the thousands of professional salaried contracted consulting warmists and self described ‘climate scientists’ concede they are wrong and so have always been wrong? It is amazing how few if any of these consultants and experts are or ever have been meteorologists.

Indeed. At what point will they recognise reality?

In the future I think there could be major academic studies into how this mass delusion of belief in AGM came about.

As for those that promote the lie of AGM which have directly cost this country and others billions, I would like to see some action taken against them, even criminal prosecution [snip].

If CO2 is the integral of temperature then it follows that the change in CO2 correlates to temperature as my chart indicates. Temperature drives the change in CO2 in the atmosphere and is considerably better related than anthropogenic carbon.

I have another chart that plots annual temperature change against annual anthropogenic carbon output:http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/Temp_Correlate_YtoY.pdf
As you can see the correlation coefficient is 0.0009 suggesting there is no relationship. The annual carbon output has accelerated over the last 40 years but the temperature change is basically a scatter plot with no relationship to the increasing carbon.

No, that does not follow. You can get a change in the integral without a change in the temperature.
Air temperature can measure the instanteous incident energy and is quick to heat and quick to cool. CO2 can go up without average air temperature going up at all. So you can get CO2 increase without Global Warming.

Temperatures go up and down around a mean. Say the upper temperature peaks have more area, injecting more heat than the lower, the sea water could heat and CO2 will go up, but the air temperature over a long period might not change at all.

Global warming is about air temperature where we humans live. However if the ocean surface heats, that is guaranteed to release vast quantities of CO2. Only recently have the usual suspects like Flannery even started to consider that most of the sun’s heat goes into the massive oceans, with hardly a thermometer to be seen for most of history. So they like to postulate that the oceans have ‘stolen’ the heat. What illogical nonsense. Now previously non existent ‘natural variation’ has hidden the heat. At what point do they admit that it was all gibberish?

They are mathematical identities so they follow:
d(CO2) = (constant) * Tdt
d(CO2)/dt = (constant) * T
Same thing just transposing the time derivative.

The equation for the line of best fit for this plot:http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/CO2vTemp.pdf
Delta CO2 (in ppm) equals 2.002 time T plus 1.722
Where to is scaled in degrees K but with an offset of the global average temperature from the UAH reference period. In 2014 the UAH temperate was 0.27 degrees above the average.

Some observations from the chart. If global temperature in any year averages the UAH mean then it is likely that CO2 will increase by 2ppm in that year.

On the other hand for CO2 to not increase in any year the temperature needs to fall 1.722/2.002 = 0.86 degrees below the UAH reference average. So a fall of 1.13 degrees from the average temperature in 2014 will cause CO2 in the atmosphere to fall. A correlation coefficient of 0.52 for any two factors in the atmosphere has to be of significance. The only other factor that I have found that correlates so well to global temperature is sunspot numbers but temperature time lagged.

The following chart demonstrates the weakness of the IPCC hypothesis that increasing anthropogenic carbon drives temperature change:http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/Temp_Correlate_YtoY.pdf
With a correlation coefficient of 0.0009 it is reasonable to conclude that increasing anthropogenic carbon is not driving temperature change.

T is temperature not time. Sure an indication that Henry’s law is working and you would expect this instantaneously. However generally what happens on a small scale in a laboratory does not necessarily happen on a global scale across night and day, summer and winter, North and South. Selby is pointing out that on this grand scale, the integral works over a considerable time. You cannot just differentiate and expect that it is also true or mix up time and temperature.

The chart reinforces Salby’s work but on yearly time intervals from 1979 to present time. Getting a correlation coefficient of 0.53 for a change in concentration of a trace gas in the atmosphere with respect to the global average temperature indicates some significance. I did not expect the correlation to be that good but it is. Anyone can get the data to verify this result.

The two equations are identical other than the time differential is transposed. Stating the two equations in words, if CO2 is the integral function of temperature with time then that is identical with stating change in atmospheric CO2 with respect to time is a function of global temperature.

The linear fit of the data shows that when UAH lower troposphere temperature equals the reference mean then CO2 will increase by 2 ppm for the corresponding year. If the temperature drops by 0.86 degrees below the UAH reference mean then it is likely that there will be no increase in atmospheric CO2 irrespective of how much carbon is burnt.

Put as simply as I can – Change in CO2 follows global temperature. Burning fossil fuel has no impact on atmospheric CO2 levels.

The data is blindingly obvious. There is no need to delve into ice cores or fossil records. Simply take the reliable satellite temperature data from 1979, the atmospheric CO2 concentration for the same period and the anthropogenic carbon output also for the same period and carry out these simple correlations.

You just conclude that it additionally behaves like a system where CO2 concentration is instantaneously proportional to temperature which is Henry’s law. So perhaps at best it confirms that it is not related to any other source and excludes bushfires, greening, man made CO2. I agree that to have CO2 correlate with the integral of Temperature does mean a linear relationship between d(CO2) and T. However this is not a mechanical system and this may not be the only solution. However there are not many big linear systems around and none of them are man made.

The chart indicates a reasonable correlation between global temperature and CHANGE in CO2 levels. When temperature goes up the annual CHANGE in CO2 levels increases. I have a linear line of best fit but that would lose relevance for longer periods and wider temperature range. On the other hand I expect it would hold over a 5 to 10 year period in the range of temperature that would result in the Change in CO2 actually becoming negative.

I have never sat down and applied Henry’s law to the surface of the oceans. I figure that has not been done by any of the climate modellers either. There is a basic assumption the the increasing CO2 is caused by burning carbon but carbon in the atmosphere shows no correlation with burning carbon. I do know that the oceans hold a great deal more CO2 than the atmosphere. The concentration also changes with depth so it is unlikely to be in equilibrium. At present the surface concentration of CO2 is significantly lower than the the concentration at depth. That means there is a very large store to draw from and very long time periods for equilibrium.

The green line is the relative correlation of changes in CO2 to changes in past temperatures, while the magenta line is the correlation between CO2 levels and future temperatures. Values above zero indicate correlation of CO2 and temperature going in the same direction and below zero means correlation of CO2 and temperature going in opposite directions. Zero means completely uncorrelated.

CO2 is ALWAYS more correlated to past temperatures then to future temperatures and the DOMEC data, which has higher resolution and better temporal positioning shows that past about 3K years, CO2 completely uncorrelated to what the future temperature will be. The peak in the green line is the delay where CO2 and temperature are most highly correlated. Note that for Vostok, this is about 500 years, but for DomeC its about 100 years. I actually believe the 100 year delay more as this is what I would expect from biology catching up with changes in temperature.

The chart I have produced surprised me by how well the change in CO2 followed the temperature. The annual variation in CO2 already suggests it is highly responsive to temperature but I did not expect such a significant relationship. It demonstrates how important temperature is to atmospheric processes. My chart provides a little extra bit of data in that it is likely that a temperature drop of 1.1 K degrees below the 2014 level will cause a reduction in CO2. That outcome would be a surprise to all climate modellers. That is not going to happen this year but is a possibility by 2020 given the weakness of solar cycle 24.

The relationship is unlikely to be linear as the line of best fit suggests but it can be linearised for short intervals and small variations. We know that the annual response of CO2 to temperature is significant with short time lag due to the cyclic pattern evident in the data . Hence for short periods of time the correlation is likely to hold. If temperature falls as fast as the reduction in sunspot activity then 2020 has some possibility of being 1.1 degree K cooler than now. In that short time frame I expect the correlation to hold.

That position has been filled by a professional organizer. (who else fits that description? Oh! Bummer! It’s slipped my mind)

From her online CV:

Ms. Figueres has made important contributions to the analytic literature on the design of the climate regime. Her writings are widely published and she is a frequent speaker on the climate change negotiations, design of the regime, as well as on policies and financial instruments for the promotion of clean energy and energy efficiency.
Ms. Figueres has a Masters Degree in Anthropology from the London School of Economics, and a certificate in Organizational Development from Georgetown University.

re·gime also ré·gimen.
1.
a. A government, especially an oppressive or undemocratic one: a fascist regime.
b. A usually heavy-handed administration or group in charge of an organization: Raises were canceled under the new regime.

2.
a. A way of organizing or managing something; a system: an admissions regime at a college.
b. A regulated system of diet, exercise, or medical treatment; a regimen.

3. The period during which a particular administration or system prevails.

4. A prevailing pattern of water flow, as of a river.

That first definition seems to have the best fit, under the circumstances.

Also from her online CV:

In 1995 Ms. Figueres founded the Center for Sustainable Development of the Americas (CSDA) and directed the four programs of this non-governmental organization for eight years, establishing fruitful working relationships with NGOs around the world. She designed and helped to establish national climate change programs in Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic, becoming a prime promoter of Latin America’s active participation in the Climate Change Convention. She designed and implemented capacity building activities for over 500 professionals in both public and private sectors in Latin America. In 2001 she received the Hero for the Planet Award by the National Geographic Magazine in recognition of her international leadership in sustainable energy and climate change.

What’s more terrifying to a climate scientist than “2 degrees” of warming? Answer: The third degree!

The fact that the won’t engage with both the skeptics and an increasingly sceptical public, just hardens the perception they’ve got something to hide. We know they actually do, but perception is all in politics.

Notice how Nicole Hasham, author of the SMH article, points out that Sen. Back is a veterinarian (thus implying he is disqualified from having a scientific opinion about climate) but fails to mention that Sen. Jensen is a physicist. The author herself is listed as a “federal politics” reporter covering environment and immigration: if she has any scientific qualifications whatever, she’s making them hard to find.

(My comment is not about politics or science, but about what passes for journalism.)

This is a link to the letter:http://www.ies.unsw.edu.au/sites/all/files/letter_to_Parliament3.7.15.pdf
The list of signatories:
Professor Xuemei Bai, Professor of Urban Environment and Human Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU
Dr. Mark Diesendorf, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Institute of Environmental Studies, UNSW.
Professor Dave Griggs, Director of the Monash Sustainability Institute.
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director of the University of Queensland Global Change Institute.
Professor Lesley Hughes, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Macquarie University and an expert on the impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems.
Professor Anthony Jakeman, Director, Integrated Catchment Assessment and Management (iCAM) Centre, Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment.
Associate Professor Frank Jotzo, Crawford School; Director, Centre for Climate Economics & Policy; Director, Resources Environment and Development (RE&D) program; NU Public Policy Fellow.
Professor David Karoly, Atmospheric Science in the School of Earth Sciences and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of Melbourne.
Dr Lorrae Van Kerkhoff, Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment.
Professor Peter Newman AO, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University and Lead Author for Transport on IPCC WG3.
Professor Will Steffen, Adjunct Professor at the ANU and the University of Canberra.
Professor Ros Taplin, Research Director, The Australian Centre for Sustainable Mining Practices, ACSMP.
Dr. Bob Webb, Senior Fellow, ANU Climate Change Institute and Fenner School of Environment and Society.

If global emmissions continue to rise on a “business as usual” basis global temperature will rise between 3.7 and 4.2 degrees C above preindustrial levels by 2100. This level of temperature increase would be catastrophic. That means we are heading toward casatrophic temperature rise.

I would like to see the Professors defend that assertion and explain why they are so certain in the face of No substantiating empirical evidence.

Maybe Senators Back and Jensen should call them all in and demand an explanation.

More relevantly do any of them have a clue about how the Earth’s climate works. I’d take the word of even a qualified vet rather than peer reviewed tripe from any of this group of climate illiterate activists.

Dr. Phil Jones – CRU emails – 7th May, 2009
‘Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’

Dr. Jochem Marotzke – Spiegel – 19th November 2009
“It cannot be denied that this is one of the hottest issues in the scientific community,”….”We don’t really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point.”

Dr. B. G. Hunt – Climate Dynamics – February 2011
“Controversy continues to prevail concerning the reality of anthropogenically-induced climatic warming. One of the principal issues is the cause of the hiatus in the current global warming trend.”

What I notice in general and also in a previous thread is that warmist usually describe scientists they do not agree with as some kind of crack pot, rather than examine or discuss their findings at all. Skeptics sometimes do that too, but not nearly as much. Skeptics usually want to get into the science in detail, and warmists try to avoid that.

Yes, I’ve been accused of being a crackpot more times than I can count. This is the typical insult when you ask questions they have no good answer for. As far as I’m concerned, the more intense the insulting gets, the more I know that they are running scared. This is a war against science and its time to fight back. Go to warmist blogs and ask the hard questions. Yes, you will probably be kicked off (an even greater honor), but the best way to overturn a lie is by repeating the truth over and over which works even better then their MO of repeating lies over and over. Here are some questions you can ask. Don’t be concerned by insults as those doing the insulting are not the ones you need to convince. You need to convince the lurkers. Critical mass is almost upon us.

1) Where does the 4.3 W/m^2 consequential to a 0.8C rise come from when only 1 W/m^2 of forcing is claimed to cause it?

2) Why isn’t the surface close to the temperature of boiling water if each of the 239 W/m^2 of forcing from the Sun results in at least 4.3 W/m^2 of incremental surface emission?

3) How does 4.3 W/m^2 of incremental surface emissions consequential to a 0.8C increase arise when each of the 239 W/m^2 of forcing coming from the Sun results in an average of 1.6 W/m^2 of surface emissions?

4) First, get them to agree that the SB Law is almost an exact model for a planet with no GHG’s or clouds in its atmosphere and then ask what physics allows the incremental sensitivity to be larger than the average sensitivity, when the SB law tells us the sensitivity must decrease as the temperature rises?

5) Simply point out that the sensitivity at 1K is about 65C per W/m^2.

6) Ask them to plot the sensitivity as a function of temperature and then apply it to 239 W/m^2 of post albedo input power..

7) Ask why the IPCC metric of forcing obfuscates the apparent net negative feedback from the reflection of clouds and ice.

8) Point out that without feedback (i.e. no GHG’s of clouds), the post albedo input power would be about 310 W/m^2 corresponding to a temperature of about 272K and not 255K, so the net effect from all feedbacks, positive, negative known and unknown is an increase of only about 16C and not the 33C often cited and incorrectly attributed to GHG’s.

7) Under what circumstances will latent heat, water vapor and clouds combine to result in the massive net positive feedback required for a high sensitivity, when a Hurricane (weather in general) exhibits the opposite behavior?

8) Why does weather satellite data with virtually continuous and complete coverage of the planet fail to confirm the speculative interpretations of adjusted, homogenized, sparse surface temperature measurements that provide the sole support for CAGW?

9) Ask what evidence would convince them that the IPCC dramatically overestimates the sensitivity?

10) And of course, make sure they understand that the controversy is about the magnitude of the sensitivity and nothing more.

1. The first part about increased surface IR radiation is true, that’s confirmed by checking RTM predictions against spectroscopic measurements. Everything after that gets worse with outdated graphs and hidden assumptions.

2. The outgoing radiation chart is old busted data, the same authors (Griggs and Harries) wrote a follow-up paper where the satellite data was adjusted for errors more fully, and what used to be a CO2 bulge turned into a CO2 wafer. But SkS still show the graph from the old paper not the new paper, gee I wonder why.

3. This part is probably true, it’s the RTMs again, but may be some wiggle room in the IR shielding effects of clouds which are not included in RTMs.

4. Oh boy, the effective feedback is very uncertain as the IPCC’s graph of the error on cloud feedback demonstrates. At this point it’s Lindzen&Choi 2011 versus Dessler 2014.

5. Conservation of energy? If you ask 3 different satellites the value of TSI you get 4 different answers. Which answer is correct and which one is Huber & Knutti using for their “conservation of energy” calculation. And they know the OHC since 1750 how exactly??? It was estimated!?? Yes, they programmed a climate model with the assumptions and the result supports their assumptions, what a surprise.

6. The consensus is GHGs have contributed 160% of the observed warming, because 85% of the extra energy has gone into the oceans and is invisible to surface measurement. Except surely that means GHGs made (1-0.85)*1.6= 25% of the observed warming, so isn’t that an admission that the IPCC’s position statement is wrong?
And doesn’t the actual harm from warming depend on the *actual* temperature, not on how much warmer the planet theoretically is than the purely natural case? So forecasting the harm from AGW requires forecasting the actual temperatures including all of the weird natural variability phenomena that they don’t know how to model yet. Just saying “More CO2 => A warmer world” isn’t good enough.

Yeah, we should actually be reading SkS, RealClimate, and ScienceOfDoom more often, that is where their core arguments are.

I was so excited to read that, at last, one of our MPs is questioning “Climate Change” as defined by the IPCC.

So much so that I have just written to him, as follows.

“Dear Mr Jensen, I have just read on Jo Nova’s blog that you are proposing an investigation into the so-called “consensus” on climate change, as defined by the IPCC.

Thanks goodness that someone in the Government has got the spinal fortitude to challenge this unscientific, misleading and highly dangerous quasi-religion that is threatening the very fibre of our world, will destroy our economies and condemn millions in poorer countries to remaining at subsistence levels.

If you have not already done so, could I commend that you refer to the item about your investigation on Jo’s blog and, in particular to this response.

“Messrs Jensen and Back should take the 13 up on their offer and ask them to then sit in on a briefing with a group of sceptical scientists and debate the issue when both groups have provided their input.

If the 13 are not prepared to do that, then the Jensen and Back should tip the bucket on them for bias and unscientific behaviour”

why are the climate scientists so reluctant to reveal their methods ?
And why do they insist the debate is over ?
Is it perhaps because they know that the current mathematical models do not represent the real world climate and that their work for the last 25 years requires a further 50 years of research to get it right ?

Any mathematician will tell you that it is possible to create a perfect Square wave from summing Sine and Cosine waves, but every EE major will tell you that it in the real world, this is not achievable.

Another case in point was during the Challenger disaster investigation, when Richard Feynman discovered that NASA scientists had calculated the safety of the Shuttle (MTBF) was 1 in 200,000, however the aerospace engineers calculated it to be 1 in 100.
The “skeptical” engineers were over ruled by NASAs political influence and thus forced to agree that STS-51L could launch outside the “flight data experience” of the SRBs

Perhaps this explains why there are so few mathematician climate skeptics (3%).

This would have been credible if the drought had continued, the temperature had kept rising, the ice had melted, the snows had vanished, the seas had actually risen the Polar bears numbers had gone down, the hot spot had appeared and so many Australian scientists had not openly questioned the science and a single prediction of Tim Flannery had actually been right. You would have to single out Prof Chris Turney and his ship of fools for the most spectacular world class stunt to utterly discredit global warming.

As it is, even passionate supporters of man made global warming have to ask themselves if they have been duped by pseudo scientists and outright opportunists. How many of the loud voices are actually even slightly qualified in hard science or of those who are, can claim to be objective?

How many know the thesis of billionaire Al Gore in obtaining his BA was “The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency, 1947-1969″. Even Sir David Attenborough would rather talk about slugs and children than answer a direct question about Global Warming from Barack Obama.

We now have to deal with 220,000 windmills, an economically crippled EU, a total lack of military, political or economic leadership from the US and worldwide pre medieval Islamic militancy and nuclear proliferation. We no longer have time for carbon taxes and Polar bears.

I find it interesting the comment that MPs should stick to politics. I actually agree. To me politics is really about the allocation of resources to try and gain the maximum benefit for the community. If there is a suggestion that money should be spent in a certain way it is incumbent upon the politician to understand the economics of that suggestion. If the undue influence of lobbyists clouds the discussion in a way that selectively presents argument related to that policy then the politician is obligated to use whatever mechanism is required to assess the pros and cons of this massive financial sacrifices that governments make on behalf of voters. Yes, MPs should stick to politics. Let’s investigate and debate climate change before we spend money that can be used elsewhere.

A parliamentary inquiry into the climate scare is a good thing, but I am afraid it will go the wrong way from the very beginning, because, if you believe the article linked above, MP Jensen is going to deal with models and failed predictions and unfortunately not with the core issues, which are the “greenhouse effect” in the first place and also the “global temperature”. Accepting the “global temperature” thing as such is unscientific, and warmists can easily admit some failed predictions. Not arguing that the “greenhouse effect” as established in climate science and IPCC reports is physically impossible leads to loosing any debate. Scientifically, saying that the “warming” CO2 induces by the “greenhouse effect” is smaller, like 1°C instead of 2°C, is false, it can not be proven, since the “greenhouse effect” does not exist at all. Therefore I do not expect much of this inquiry.

Go George (O/T btw.) UK Chancellor tells renewables to start paying their way, in his first Budget since an all out Conservative Election victory (except in Scotland) in May.
c/o The GWPF
“Drax Group Plc, the utility converting the biggest U.K. coal station to burning wood pellets, plunged to its lowest ever after the government said clean power will have to start paying a climate-change tax. The stock tumbled 28 percent in London to the lowest since it started trading in 2005. Shares of Infinis Energy Plc, a Northampton-based developer of clean power listed in London, also slumped 8 percent to the lowest since November 2013. –Louise Downing, Bloomberg, 8 July 2015“

The key question to ask the climate scientist advocating the IPCC version is, what would be required to falsify the hypothesis of CAGW?

Watch the prevarication and lateral scuttle.

In reality, because it’s a policy driven ‘belief’ it is unfalsifiable. Further, because it’s a proxy for UN driven ideological change – see UNFCCC Christiana Figueres statement – it becomes increasingly irrelevant what the weather or the climate actually does.

I would like to write to my local politicak “representative” but about the lie of AGW but am not sure what approach to take. The problem is that AGW is no longer about science. The science is clear, there is no AGW. AGW, is now about “belief”, so how do we deal with that?

Off topic – I posted in another story a question but the thread is no longer active so I hope you don’t mind me posting here. How safe is original BoM data? Will future scientists, or even present ones have access to original, unaltered data? Or are the carefully recorded records of 100+ years being systematically destroyed? I understood that they were, in fact, destroying original paper records. And what about digital records, are there any unaltered versions of those available, or are the original files deleted after they have been tampered with?

‘I have no interest in briefing Jensen or his colleagues. The world is doing that quite effectively and speaks with a louder voice than I do.’

and

Professor Matthew England

‘Jensen is showing a worrying ignorance of the science. And he’s being fooled by dodgy analyses put out by lobby groups determined to delay action on reducing fossil fuel emissions. Colleagues overseas can’t believe we have elected representatives who still don’t get the science. It’s an embarrassment.’

incredibly, given the ongoing royal commission into trade union corruption, Wade seems to say it doesn’t matter if workers lose jobs, cos this is a global movement???

9 July: ABC AM: Labor faces grass roots push to set firm climate targets
ASHLEY HALL: And today several NGOs, including Oxfam, will begin a campaign to put even more pressure on the party, claiming Labor is becoming indistinguishable from the Liberals…
JAKE STURMER: Much of what you’re pushing for, though, is likely to lead to job losses in both the mining and the energy sectors. Won’t that trigger huge internal divisions within the party?
FELICITY WADE: Look, Labor unions have been incredibly brave on this over time. We are going to have to transition and that has impacts for workers: there’s no doubt about it.
But this is part of the point. This is going to happen anyway. This is a global movement…
JAKE STURMER: Oxfam, The Wilderness Society, Solar Citizens and GetUp are on board.
Sam McLean is GetUp’s national director:
SAM MCLEAN: I think a lot of Australians have been looking to the Labor Party to do their job: to be the Opposition to this Government…http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4270158.htm

unanimous decision to give the Great Barrier Reef a clean bill of health

Are you gilding the lily there Pat? My understanding is that there was a huge concern about the effects of agricultural run-off and port development and that both the Australian Gov and the Queensland Gov had to make serious financial commitments and limit development up there to win the praise of UNESCO. UNESCO was applauding the commitments which were previously somewhat lacking, I don’t think it was any sort of award to say the reef was not facing threats as you seem to suggest. I think it would be reasonable for people to be sceptical about ‘promises’.

Solar Citizens: The Team
Community Organiser
Jason has been involved in community groups for over fifteen years working on various local environment issues. For the last four years he worked for Greenpeace Australia Pacific managing ***Greenpeace’s volunteer groups…
Nicky Ison, Convenor
Nicky works as a Senior Research Consultant on climate change and energy at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney…
Erland Howden
Erland was a climate and energy campaigner for a number of years with ***Greenpeace and the Nature Conservation Council…
Mark Capps
His career has taken him through management consultancy with McKinsey, search giant Google and his own start up…
***Anna Rose
Anna is an Australian author and environmentalist, National Manager of Earth Hour, and the 2015 Australian Geographic Society Conservationist of the Year…http://www.solarcitizens.org.au/meet_the_team

10 June: Reuters: Nichola Groom: INSIGHT-Prison labor helps U.S. solar company manufacture at home
One of the largest companies to manufacture solar panels in the United States uses a surprising resource to keep costs low and compete against producers from China: prison labor.
Suniva Inc, a Georgia-based solar cell and panel maker that is backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc, farms out a small portion of its manufacturing to federal inmates as part of a longstanding government program intended to prepare them for life after prison…
Suniva panels are on systems at Whole Foods Market Inc’s flagship store in Austin, Texas and at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, to name just two projects…
Suniva has raised more than $200 million from investors including Goldman Sachs, venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates and Prelude Ventures and private equity firms H.I.G. Ventures and Warburg Pincus. It has also received $6.8 million in Department of Energy grants.
Goldman Sachs would not comment on its investment in Suniva…http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/10/solar-prison-suniva-idUSL1N0YP17Y20150610

Politicians should do what they are told? So an election where both sides promised absolutely no carbon tax and we instantly had a carbon tax?

Green parties around the world with only 10-14% of the vote often hold the balance of power and get vastly disproportionate political influence. In Australia only 8 Federal seats for the Labor party were obtained outright where the rest were dependent on Green preferences. Over 50 seats were outright for the Coalition but the Senate minority control our government although there is only one Green member of the House of Representatives out of 200! They control the senate because of Public Service dominated Tasmania and South Australia where a Green vote counts as 16 votes anywhere else. These states are totally subsidized by the rest of the country while they shut down our democratic government and their own industries and demand subsidies and welfare. We can only hope the next election means a workable democratic government, not what Paul Keating described as unrepresentative rabble, led by lifelong anarchist communist Greens.

Taegan Edwards:
Taegen has previously worked in public policy and research roles including at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute.

2010: Crikey: Alan Davies: The ABC and climate change
Taegen Edwards has a superb letter in The Age today in response to Maurice Newman’s upbraiding of the ABC for supposed lack of balance on climate change.
She points out that unless it resorts to ideologues, opportunists, vested interests or nutters, where can the ABC possibly find someone who opposes climate change from a rational, evidence-based viewpoint?
The ABC’s obligation to ensure fundamental principles of science and logic are respected must come before any compulsion to provide ‘balance’ in ideology and political point-scoring…http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2010/03/12/the-abc-and-climate-change/

2010: The Age: Letters: Give equal time to fossil fuel lobby?
FIRST LETTER:
Lynne Holroyd, East Hawthorn
MAURICE Newman doesn’t seem to understand the ABC of reporting or of media independence (”ABC chairman warms to the climate sceptics”, The Age, 11/3). Science reporting does not mean promoting the interests of the fossil fuel lobby by giving equal time to views that have no scientific merit. Does Mr Newman want equal time given to those ”experts” who still deny the link between smoking and lung cancer or the role of chlorofluorocarbons in creating the hole in the ozone?…
Mr Newman, a former stockbroker, investment banker and member of the Business Council, might benefit from a lunch with our most respected climate scientists and Media Watch’s Jonathan Holmes. They might be able to administer some true balance by enlightening him on the finer points of the so-called climate change controversy and his proper role in supporting disinterested science and accurate, fearless, honest journalism in the greater public interest…
SECOND LETTER:
Taegen Edwards, The McCaughey Centre, University of Melbourne
WHAT a stroke of genius from Maurice Newman. Rather than ABC journalists seeking to publish views informed by evidence and claims able to be substantiated, they should give more air time to ”contrary points of view”. They could publish Joe Blow’s thoughts about how it’s not happening because there was a really bad heatwave back when he was a kid; they could profile a scientist who’s always wanted a slice of the media spotlight but never published a peer-reviewed paper on climate science; or they could ask a coal industry PR consultant whether it’s happening.
Sounds much easier than bothering to read detailed reports containing rigorous and mounting evidence of human-induced climate change, and having to translate the alarming messages into something palatable for the Aussie public.
I’d like to see the ABC maintain credibility by ensuring reports are backed up by evidence and not giving vent to ideologically determined or profit-driven faux-science designed to confuse the public. Climate science is not a matter of opinion. Unfortunately media outlets who respect that are hard to come by. Talk about groupthink…http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/letters/give-equal-time-to-fossil-fuel-lobby-20100311-q1gm

for those of you who try, but fail, to get letters published in Fairfax, check out the extraordinary number of letters this CAGW activist lot gets published, including, in particular, Lynne Holroyd, East Hawthorn, whose Maurice Newman letter i posted earlier above the Taegan Edwards one:

LighterFootprints: Lighter Footprints aims to influence Australians (including local, state and national decision-makers) to take urgent action to halt global warming
Some Recent Successes in Letters Being Published:
We have continued to be successful with Letters to the Age on relevant climate change issues, most consistently the review of the Renewable Energy Target (RET). There have been some terrific articles from Age journalists recently.
We have been at Festivals with our stall demonstrating the model of the Spanish solar thermal power station that generates power day and night, and have collected many signatures on letters to politicians and on submissions to the RET Review…http://www.lighterfootprints.org/p/letters-coming-soon.html

8 July: CarbonBrief: Simon Evans: Budget 2015: Key climate and energy announcements
A £910m blow to renewable energy firms and an end to a road tax incentive for lower-carbon cars were among the climate and energy announcements in today’s first Conservative budget since 1996…
Osborne plans to remove the renewables exemption. Analysts say this could wipe 5-6% off the income for onshore windfarms and make some planned projects unviable…
Contract rules for some schemes mean they may be able to claim compensation if a change in the law puts them at a disadvantage, so the government may face legal action…
Industry group Renewable UK called the decision “punitive” and accused the government of making retrospective changes penalising already-operating projects…
Osborne also failed to mention the Carbon Floor Price, the UK’s top-up carbon tax. The chancellor froze this at £18 per tonne of carbon dioxide until the end of the decade in last year’s budget. It is due to increase rapidly through the 2020s. Without this increase, ministerial assertions that coal’s share of the UK electricity mix will fall to 1% by 2025 will be on shaky ground…
The budget also announced changes that amount to support for fossil fuels. These include an expansion of oil and gas exploration tax relief, expected to cost the government £10m in 2020/21. This comes on top of earlier changes designed to support North Sea oil and gas activities…
He will scrap the existing sliding scale tax for new cars, which gives an incentive to buy lower-carbon vehicles. This will be replaced with a zero-rate tax for zero-emissions cars and a flat rate for all other cars.
This means road tax will increase for low-emissions cars and decrease for those with the highest emissions. For instance a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid could see road tax increase from £10 in the first year to £140. A Land Rover Freelander would see its first year rate fall from £800 to £140…
Today’s offering from the Conservative government, unencumbered by its Liberal Democrat former coalition partner, contains little positive news for the UK’s low-carbon transition…http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/07/summer-budget-2015-key-climate-and-energy-announcements/

7 July: ShanghaiList: Joyc Ng: Yesterday, Shanghai recorded its coldest July day in 112 years
The highest temperature in Shanghai yesterday reached only 21.2 degrees Celsius, making it the coldest July day recorded in the past 112 years, thanks to the impact of a cold air mass and heavy rains.
After a dramatic drop to 23.1 degrees Celsius this past Sunday, the mercury in Shanghai fell further yesterday to 21.2 degrees. As of 2:00 p.m. yesterday, various districts recorded temperatures lower than 20 degrees, with the Pudong New Area falling to almost 18.2 degrees, Xinmin Reports.
According to the city’s meteorological bureau, the coldest July day on record was in 1903, when the mercury dropped to 20.9 degrees…
From June 26 through July 5, the average temperature in the city was about three degrees lower than the same period last year.
With many people layered in long sleeves and even woolen sweaters, netizens could not help but jokingly ask, “Has Shanghai entered the Autumn season yet?”http://shanghaiist.com/2015/07/07/yesterday_was_shanghais_coldest_jul.php

I swear by Gore the diviner, and Suzuki the magician, likewise Strong and Soros, and call on Mother Gaia to witness, that I will observe and keep this underwritten oath, to the utmost of my power and judgment.

I will reverence my masters who taught me the art of hypocrisy. I allow them things necessary for their support, provided it comes from someone else’s purse, and will consider all fellow hypocrites as brothers and sisters. And for one day each year I will preach the virtues of my masters’ art without actually practicing it myself; and I will impart all my acquirement, instructions, and whatever I know, to everyone’s children, as to my own, even though I am a complete and utter phony.”

8 July: Bloomberg: Stefan Nicola: World Suffering Surge in Extreme Rainfall Due to Climate Change
… scientists say…
Extreme rains, like those that led to flooding and a cholera outbreak that killed hundreds in Pakistan in 2010, are happening 12 percent more often globally and 56 percent more frequently in Southeast Asia than if the world wasn’t warming, according a study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
“One out of 10 record-breaking rainfall events observed globally in the past 30 years can only be explained if the long-term warming is taken into account,” Dim Coumou, co-author of the report released Wednesday, said in a statement. “For the last year studied, 2010, it is even one event out of four.”…http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-08/world-suffering-surge-in-extreme-rainfall-due-to-climate-change

“one out of 10 record-breaking rainfall events observed globally in the last 30 years can only be explained if the long term warming is taken into account”
Which implies 9 out of 10 CAN be “explained” without taking “long term warming” (absent some 19 years) into account.
I can explain it too.
“S*** Happens”
LOL indeed.

Many people have noted that according to CAGW ™ adherents global warming causes global cooling. Now we have proof! More heat means more evaporation means more precipitation means more rain means more cooling.

ahh . . . wait . . .

More cooling means less evaporation means less precipitation means less cooling means more warming?

/sarc off

So it’s just a natural cycle. Regardless of what happens to our weather, CAGW ™ adherents will hi-jack natural variability, re-phrase the events in their own private little language, and take the credit for the ‘discovery’.

Then they’ll blame it all on those pesky humans with their life-saving electricity thinggy’s and of course, demand more money for more research on how to stop those pesky humans from climbing out of poverty.

given ABC’s AM prog this morning, with its mention of unions/workers, etc., i just remembered i hadn’t posted the following.

hot on the heels of 4 CAGW Energy Futures programs shilling for renewables, ABC’s “Big Ideas” this week has the following (which will get 3 hours air-time minimum presumably).

in the intro, ABC’s Paul Barclay says: “already a modern car manufacturing plant can ***MAKE one car every 16 seconds using robots rather than humans”. at least the photo caption correctly says ***”ASSEMBLE”.

no need to tell u where this discussion went, with Paul Barclay agreeing to and augmenting every scary bit of CAGW nonsense spouted by Jackson, the need for renewables etc. Rio Tinto & other guests were non-partisan, but those listed managed to attack the govt almost every time they spoke. we need a carbon tax, of course.

anyway, given the narrow remit of the Ray Martin inquiry into the ABC, it’s such a shame its CAGW bias is not being examined. guest Schofield is from the United Voice Union. what a lovely bunch they seem to be!

Sept 2014: United Voice: National Secretary’s (David O’Byrne) address to National Council
It is Tea Party ideology, the new religion of the rich and mad. It’s the radicalisation of the Right. You can no longer refer, for instance, to the Liberal National Party as a conservative party…
And it seemed in 2007, when John Howard lost his seat, that we had fought and killed the anti-worker, anti-community agenda of these mad bastards, but we hadn’t, we had just delayed it.
The radicals are back, the Thatcherites are back…
If you are unemployed; a pensioner; a student; a refugee; a fan of B1 and B2 and the public broadcaster; if you believe that climate change is a crisis and the Budget surplus is not, you are under attack as no-one has been since the McCarthyist era in America…http://www.unitedvoice.org.au/news/national-secretarys-address-national-council

The concept “expert” is often used in court cases. A jury is instructed by the judge that this witness is an “expert” in a certain field. For example, a “fingerprint expert”. Since the jury won’t have the time to investigate the basis for every claim made by the defence and the prosecution, they have to accept “expert opinion”. It’s not at all like that in science. There is no such person as an “expert”. It’s even incompatible with the scientific method to call someone a “scientist”. There are people who put forward hypotheses which explain observations more economically than former hypotheses. That’s all.

Australian climate scientists don’t complain at all when the UN says it wants to redirect $89 Trillion in a quest to change the climate. But they are suddenly all concerned that the Australian Government might waste 0.0001% investigating the science. A disaster! Since when were climate scientists concerned about wasting public money? Since never.

Redacted:

Australia’s so called ‘climate scientists’ don’t complain at all when the UN says it wants to redirect waste $89 Trillion in a quest to change the climate. But they are suddenly all concerned that the Australian Government might waste spend 0.0001% of that amount investigating the[ir] science scientific pronouncements for validity and soundness. A disaster! Since when were these so called ‘climate scientists’ concerned about wasting public money? Since never!

They call themselves ‘climate scientists’ but they behave like technocrats.

Verification via ‘reproducibility* is the cornerstone of science**.

From The BOM Technical Advisory Forum report:

It would be useful for the Bureau to provide advice about the necessary level of end-user expertise (notwithstanding a likely tendency for end-users to feel qualified to attempt such an analysis).

No. This statement makes no sense.
First of all, if the BoM’s technocrats can learn how to do what they do, then so can others.
Second of all, and more importantly, there are literally thousands of people world-wide, some of which post frequently right here on this blog, that are already perfectly capable of understanding complex statistical equations and procedures and computer algorithms.

We’re not in grade school where the ‘teacher’ decides whether the ‘student’ has mastered comprehension of the subject matter. This is the real world where responsible adults who have already proven their worth both in academia and throughout their respective careers can evaluate any and all ‘scientific pronouncements’ for themselves.

Jo, you wrote “… so afraid the Coalition might really call their bluff and demand real answers”. Do you think it is getting harder to push the narrative that the Conservative side of politics are the sole purveyors of the truth regarding CAGW? Even more recently there is a spat within the Coalition between the Nationals and the Liberals and it was that spat which took the debate-the-scientists item off the agenda of their last soiree. I realise that a lot of the Nats can be anti-coal and gas if it encroaches on farm land but there are plenty of Nats who have sipped or even gulped the kool-aid re the warming. The enviro minister is out there saying the CAGW thing is ‘real’, even Tony himself has not mentioned the c word for some time. You now have the spiritual leader of arguably a LOT of Conservatives here and around the world jumping on the CAGW bandwagon. You have seen Conservative PMs around the world ante up at the UN table. You have seen Conservative ‘free market’ bankers spruiking it. Is it really such an integral part of Conservative ideology or is that just a happy coincidence for the time being? Logic would say that the divide might align along the lines of those that best understood science but it obviously doesn’t but the Conservative divide does not seem to match the observations either.

can’t imagine our MSM will be reverting to the use of “global warming” just yet:

VIDEO: 9 July: Sky News: Major winter storm approaching parts of Aust
The Bureau of Meteorology says this strong cold front will sweep over much of Australia potentially causing the largest outbreak of frigid conditions in 15 years.The front will send the mercury dropping in Adelaide and Melbourne on Saturday, while Sydneysiders will experience the sharp sting of winter on Sunday.
Sky news weather meteorologist Ben Domensino explains more in this video.http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2015/07/09/major-winter-storm-approaching-parts-of-aust.html

9 July: Brisbane Times: Kim Stephens: Antarctic front to bring icy winter chill to southern Queensland
Temperatures in southern Queensland are set to plummet from Saturday night onwards, as dual Antarctic fronts sweep across Australia’s south-east.
Two icy blasts are tipped to cross the continent throughout the week, according to Weatherzone, causing minimum temperatures in Brisbane to dip well into single digits for the entire week.
A low of six degrees is forecast from Monday to Wednesday, while a minimum of eight degrees is predicted for the remainder of the week.
Maximum temperatures will also be well below the July average, barely climbing above the mid teens for the week…
Snow is tipped to fall as low as 600 metres along the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales and parts of inland Queensland should brace for frost, he said…
So cold is it expected to be, Mr Sharpe said, there is a small chance snow could also fall just across the Queensland border.
“This is going to be one of the coldest runs of days for a large majority of eastern Australia,” he said.
“Across southern and eastern Australia it will be the coldest spell in two or three years or in some cases five years.”…http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/antarctic-front-to-bring-icy-winter-chill-to-southern-queensland-20150709-gi8nj7.html

The scientists are giving good advice to the Australian parliament – why waste time and money holding an enquiry into what is established science?

Even if they did, the outcome will not change and the conclusions will be based on what is now known.

Personally I would love to see such an enquiry – it would be very entertaining. I wonder where they would find enough qualified people to testify on the climate change dissident’s side, I suspect there are not that many in Australia at any rate. I watched one of the UK enquiries on climate change and they included dissenters from the US, including a book author with no science qualification that I am aware of.

Nobel Laureate, Ivar Giaever, might be free to give a considered opinion.

Here’s a sample:

Giaever accused NASA and federal scientists of “fiddling” with temperatures.

“They can fiddle with the data. That is what NASA does.”

“You cannot believe the people — the alarmists — who say CO2 is a terrible thing. Its not true, its absolutely not true,” Giaever continued while showing a slide asking: ‘Do you believe CO2 is a major climate gas?’

“I think the temperature has been amazingly stable. What is the optimum temperature of the earth? Is that the temperature we have right now? That would be a miracle. No one has told me what the optimal temperature of the earth should be,” he said.

“How can you possibly measure the average temperature for the whole earth and come up with a fraction of a degree. I think the average temperature of earth is equal to the emperor’s new clothes. How can you think it can measure this to a fraction of a degree? It’s ridiculous,” he added.

If he thinks he has science on his side, he should write a paper and publish it in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. He is aware this is how it is done of course – they would not have given him a Nobel Prize for his personal opinion.

In the paper he can discuss the evidence for why he thinks the science of climate change is a religion.

I see he has a position with the Heartland Institute, so perhaps his motivation is financial.

“The scientists are giving good advice to the Australian parliament – why waste time and money holding an enquiry into what is established science?”

The scientists are giving good advice because they have –
Found the long lost observable, reproducible, verified proof that CO2 has heated the atmosphere?
Found the long lost missing heat?
Found the required tropical hotspot?
Have they observable, reproducible, verified proof why global temperatures have failed to rise appreciably over the last 18-20 years, thus showing the climate models are completely in error.

I believe you will find the answer to all the questions are NO, NO,a very big NO , and a massive NO!

There is NO observable, reproducible, verified proof for the assertion that CO2 causes atmospheric warming — none!
Until there is there is no science.

Harry Twinotter: “The scientists are giving good advice to the Australian parliament – why waste time and money holding an enquiry into what is established science?”
As in any profession, there are the gifted, the talented, the competent, and the downright useless.
I’d be wary of the pronouncements of scientists.
I’m curious. What exactly you are are referring to when you talk about ‘established science’?

Harry Twinotter: I have a working lifetime’s experience of science and technology, and received a Ph.D. for work for embracing several disciplines including immunology, microbiology and biochemistry.
In answer to your comment, the word ‘distrust’ isn’t one I’d use. I’d be inclined to borrow a term from the business world, and that’s ‘due diligence’.
Professor Robert M. Carter in his excellent book ‘Climate: The Counter Consensus’ refers (p22) to the variety of disciplines contributing to climate research. These include meteorology, atmospheric physics, atmospheric chemistry, geology and more. He also refers to what he calls the ‘enabling disciplines’ such as mathematics, statistics, and engineering.
He comments (p23) that ‘As a generalisation, it can be said that most of the scientific alarm about dangerous climate change is generated by scientists in the meteorological and computer modelling group, whereas many (though not all) geological scientists see no cause for alarm when modern climate change is compared with the climate history that they see every time they stand at an outcrop, or examine a drill core.’
My Ph.D. project was in vaccine research, and certain protein molecules were being considered as possibly useful. It’s possible to computer model the 3D shapes of such molecules, but that in no way tells you whether or not these will actually work as a vaccine. Biological studies are essential.
I’m unimpressed by the climate research community’s dependence on computer modelling. Clever mathematics and computer programming perhaps, but it’s not the real world.
Relative to my specialities, I’ve seen absolute rubbish touted by the dangerous man-made global warming believers, for example the supposed malarial spread northwards by mosquitoes as a result of global warming (see the comments by Professor Paul Reiter on the internet for the story).
Dissenting voices are essential in science, and should be heard.

I am puzzled by your change of subject into microbiology. You really are ranting.

I am not impressed by your “appeal to authority”, especially when you are contradicting yourself about trust of scientists. Anyway if you want to prove you have a Ph.D, citations to any of you studies published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature please.

Harry Twinotter: Of course I’ve checked points on interest in Professor Carter’s book. As an example, on p120 he presents a graph comparing actual measured temperatures with IPCC computer projections, and comments on these.
I looked up the original graph in the IPCC’s tome ‘Climate Change 2007 – The Physical Science Basis’. You’ll find it on p803, and it’s as in Professor Carter’s book. The Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) website confirms the lack of temperature rise also shown in the book.
Do you not see that because of my medical laboratory background the comment regarding malaria-bearing mosquitoes is relevant?
Finally, I don’t need to prove anything to you about my background.
Your attitude is antagonistic, and you would do well to be polite to people.

Harry Twinotter: Here’s the relevance of microbiology. Climate activism from Al Gore, a realistic view from Professor Paul Reiter, with a link to his original submission to the UK Parliament:
From Al Gore ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ (published 2006), page 173:
“Mosquitoes are profoundly affected by global warming. There are cities that were originally located just above the mosquito line, which used to mark the altitude above which mosquitoes would not venture. Nairobi, Kenya, and Harare, Zimbabwe are two such cities. Now, with global warming, the mosquitoes are climbing to higher altitudes.”
From Professor Paul Reiter’s report to the UK Parliament’s Select Committee on Economic Affairs (March 2005) Paragraph 16: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we21.htm
“The IPCC authors even claimed that a relatively small increase in winter temperature in Kenya could extend mosquito habitat and enable malaria to reach beyond the usual altitude limit of around 2,500m to the large malaria free urban highland populations, e.g. Nairobi.”
This despite the fact that in the 1960s mosquitoes were present above 3,000m and Nairobi is at only 1,600m!
Professor Reiter is referring to the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report, Working Group II. Chapter 18. Human Population Health.

H.T. questions the relevence of microbiology to the climate change ™ discussion and calls it a rant . . .

Harry Twinotter wrote:

I am puzzled by your change of subject into microbiology. You really are ranting.

You show him what the relevence is . . .

You wrote:

“Mosquitoes are profoundly affected by global warming. There are cities that were originally located just above the mosquito line, which used to mark the altitude above which mosquitoes would not venture. Nairobi, Kenya, and Harare, Zimbabwe are two such cities. Now, with global warming, the mosquitoes are climbing to higher altitudes.”

The Guardian tells us “The lectures in the University of Queensland MOOC not only explain the science, but also the fallacies underpinning each myth. This is a unique and important feature to this course, because understanding their origins effectively acts to inoculate people against myths.”

Has anyone signed up for this? It would be interesting/fun to hear what they have to say.

We are concerned at your concern because we’re not quite sure what it relates to?

If it is based on a perception that people in our political party “deny climate change” or “deny the science”, then we can definitely put your mind to rest.

For the record, there is no person we are aware of within the Parliamentary Liberal party who denies there is such a thing as climate, nor that it changes, nor that until about 17 years ago, measured global surface temperature was increasing, (as has been the case for about 150 years) nor that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and finally that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are impacted by human activities.

We completely accept there is a sound scientific basis for these statements as noted in numerous reports including that of the IPCC; indeed there is a widespread consensus within the party about them.

However, despite our obvious need for re-education, we still retain sufficient rational faculties to suspect that you know all of the above to be true, yet continue to ptetend our scepticism is about something completely different t to avoid actually engaging in discussions of real substance.

And it’s not just the continual rote nature of such misrepresentations which gives rise to our concerns.

Firstly, there is no independent research whatsoever which illustrates a “consensus” of qualified scientists on dangerous human induced global warming.

If there is, it should be prominently promoted and referenced when claims about a consensus are made.

Secondly, the language utilised by some of the signatories, including Dr Leslie Hughes who appeared on Radio National this morning, is woefully unscientific. Apparently, we (humanity) are “on a bus hurtling towards a precipice” and “the rest of the world has stopped debating this”. Odd statements; one is flagrantly exaggerated and completely unsupported by any evidence and the second a demonstrable falsehood. And whilst on the subject of RN’s faithful messaging, the website heading of the interviews reads “Top climate scientists offer to brief LNP sceptics on latest evidence on global warming”.

Yet Dr Leslie isn’t a climate scientist – she’s a biologist. She does understand that “some of the best scientists in the world are employed by CSIRO”. Oddly, she then goes on to patronise the previous interviewee Dr Dennis Jensen, a graduate of Monash University with a PhD in Materials Science and Physics. He also worked as a research scientist (not in climatology) at the CSIRO. Yet his scientific credentials – the highest of any individual in both Houses of Parliament and his career at CSIRO are not promoted by RN yet Dr Leslie’s are.

The most effective and economically viable lower CO2 technologies, which don’t require greatly increased government regulation, including taxes and massive subsidies, are right in front of your nose.

Modern, state-of-the-art coal-fired generators produce significantly less CO2 than any target proposed to date. Replacing old, inefficient coal generators with modern facilities in and of itself, would hugely reduce our emissions.

And nuclear energy produces no emissions at all.

Both of these technologies are mature, reliable, efficient and cost effective compared to solar and wind and could deliver big CO2 reductions within a decade.

Fourthly, it is odd that you don’t demand or at least support an independent, high profile, public enquiry – such as a Royal Commission – into the science supporting dangerous human induced global warming.

As the facts underpinning your catastrophic predictions are apparently so certain, why not?

It would silence some dissent – your obvious aim, bolster public support for your position and demonstrate the intellectual paucity of Dennis Jensen and associates.

Whilst I would be embarrassed to debate someone who thought the earth was flat (on par with your representations of sceptics) , I certainly wouldn’t be afraid of it and if pushed to the point of irritation, would relish the opportunity for a comprehensive demolition.

Finally, remember when the Howard government urged Australians to be “alert but not alarmed” in respect to potential terrorist activity?

It was an unremarkable but sensible sentiment.

Stay alert to facts, observations and evidence but remain rational and not alarmed.

Your insistence that the population be alarmed but NOT alert isn’t indicative of what we expect from “experts” and is far less likely to be accepted by an increasingly disinterested public, which in turn, drives the politicians.

We skeptics know how important is the Aussie inquiry into AGW/CC science. Would it help to encourage an international letter-writing campaign to MP’s Jensen and Back urging that they proceed forthwith?

Please do me the favour of sending both the email and snail mail addresses for these gentlemen.